My First Ever 2 Cakes, Im Hooked

Hello Ladies. I thought I'd post my first 2 cakes Ive ever made and decorated for some constructive criticism as family & friends ALWAYS say things are great just so as not to upset you

I started out making a cake for one reason only, we needed a Christening cake for our sons Christening and to be honest we were a bit skint as we had just got back from holiday & had spent all our money ha so I set about going to a few cake making stores to get prices and the basic of basic cakes were not really what I was looking for and we couldn't really afford to pay more so I told my parter I would make it myself, to which he laughed his head off and said i'll tell everyone their wont be a cake then thats confidence fo ya!!!

Anyway I had never even baked a cake before and stumbled accross this site & Anmie (if that is the right name!) blog & You Tube tutorials, I didnt even know how to cover a square cake without having seams at the corners!! So I have to deeply thank you guys here at CC as I combined everyone hints and tips and came up with my first ever cake (under alot of pressure seen as it was my sons big day!)

Anyway I must admit I am quite proud of my first every atempt and enjoyed it SOOO much I decided to practice at every opportunity!!

My first cake is covered in white fondant, I made the Teddy & Building blocks out of Fondant (the teddy went in the fridge and then went shinny and it was only after I read NEVER to put fondant in the fridge!) and the Writing is Royal Icing. The cake was a basic Victoria Sponge (which was a little soft for cutting and it colapsed at some points and I had to stick it together with buttercream and eddible glue ha - Ive changed my recipie now) Ok here it is (I removed the thing coming out of teds back when it arrived at the venue, he kepts slouching!)

So after this was halloween and we were having a little party so I decided to make another cake, now this IMO was a disaster! My timings got all messed up, my son was poorly, my OH got called in to work so I was on my own looking after a poorly boy, decorating the house, doing other food and making the cake, I was stressed and it wasnt pretty! The shop didnt have the right colouring pastes so the colourings went funny and the Fondant didnt seem firm enough and my models kept slouching, in the end I thought it looked like pretty pants and think everyone said it was great to make me feel better - good job I have nice friends

The Halloween cake was supposed to be this one from Debbie Browns Party Cakes book

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to stop my figures from slouching, Im makeing some more for another cake and I dont want the same problem, should I not be modeling my figures out of fondant?

To not have taken any classes, you did a terrific job. Can I ask you how you got your blocks so pefectly square and the exact same size? I have some baby blocks to do next week and I like the way yours look.

Your cakes are great!! I used to make the same mistake with the fondant, gumpaste dries quicker so the figures don't slouch as much, but it does NOT taste good, hehe. I'm not a pro though and I'm sure you'll get a lot more help from other people.... The bear was really cute!!! Congrats and keep moving forward!!

I absolutely refuse to believe that your sons Christening cake is your first cake ever. No way!!! That is so perfect looking, even your writing looks really good. (I can't write on a cake nicely to save my life, because my IRL handwriting is terrible!)

Thanks for all the positive replies guys & the help with the figures, I will get some gumpaste to give it ago mixed 50/50 with fondant. Im really pleased you all like them!!

Ranbel : The blocks took a long time to get so right, I basically did one long 2.5cm wide block and smoothed it with the smoother, then I got a sharpe knife and a ruler and cut it down the middle and then along at 1cm intervals so I had about 30 little blocks (all about 1cm by 1cm) then I picked the best half of them and used the smoother on one hand and the flat ruler (another smoother would have been ideal but I didnt have one so used the ruler as it was a flat plastic one) and flattened all sides barley touching them, then I didnt do the writing till I had left them to firm up so that I could touch them - closer inspection to the cake in real life will reveal the blocks are not perfectly the same size! I made a few errors and pretty much used up all of the square blocks!

Mom2ANC: I promise that was my first proper cake, the writing was difficult but I picked up a great tip from here, if you can see in the pic you can see the corner of a piece of paper with computer print on, well I wrote it out on word, picked a font that was quite spacious, messed round with the size, printed it off then I lay it on the cake, went over it with a blunt squer so it indented the cake, then just went over the indent with the royal in a piping bag, by hand was shaking like a leaf the whole time, I did do about an hours practice before hand on greaseproof paper in order to get my ''flow'' going! (Oh and my IRL handwriting in real life if very very neat so maybe that helps!)

The 50/50 gumpaste and fondant works well, but you could also just add tylose (also called CMC) to your fondant (half a teaspoon to 250g fondant / sugarpaste) - works for me, and aine2!!Awesome chritening cake, by the way!

I think tour fondant is better than mine on your square cake, good job. That's how it all starts and then ........your hooked and you find yourself buying cake stuff instead of new panties and bras. lol Oh and countless hours on cc which is why dinner is never made on time. Hahaha. Ooooh boy I love CC.

Shazzicakes : Ill try the CMC thing as well (hope the local cake store has some) then all see which one works best for me, thanks for the Tip.

I have always been artistic (I was always in trouble at school for drawing and designing my books ) and I have always been very good at copying what I see, so as long as I have a pic/model/video I can have a good go at re creating.

The only problem Im seeing is the time! The cristening cake took from about 9am till 6pm (including the baking of the cake) and the Castle momonstrosity I baked it the night before and the decorating took me about 4/5 hours which I think is a long time!!

Re the christening cake I was EXTREMLY proud at how it turned out which is why I think im so dissapointed with the castle, I think I aimed to high with it, but the Christening cake has perhaps photographed smoother than it was as it wasnt perfectly flat and had a fair few bumps and dents in it!!

My neices birthday is going to me similar to the christening cake with Peppa Pig & her brother George on it so need to get practicing these models!!!

That's how it all starts and then ........your hooked and you find yourself buying cake stuff instead of new panties and bras. lol Oh and countless hours on cc which is why dinner is never made on time. Hahaha. Ooooh boy I love CC.